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11.04.2010

Aloha Honeymoon Day 1-4

I love the first day of a vacation because each day to come is stretched out ahead like an unopened present just waiting to be had. Checking out your digs is usually one of the first thing you do and it was so cool to find that our room not only met my expectations but exceeded it. When we walked into our Lagoon Tower room and started exploring I got really, really excited because it was even nicer then I expected.

Master Bedroom

Dining Room

Living Room

Granite counter tops, plantation shutters in the master bedroom, two balconies! When you open the sliding door of the main balcony the AC automatically clicks off and it's like being outside but in. It was a recently renovated huge 2 bedroom/2 bath condo with a full kitchen. It still had that "new" smell and I was so excited to have it as our "home" for 8 whole days!!!

We watched the sunset, unpacked and then went foraging for food which isn't too hard since the Hilton Hawaiian Village is really just that. A little village that has everything you need including retail stores, convenience stores, restaurants, bars and most importantly the beach. We ate at a Japanese restaurant called Hatsuhana where Mj was quite happy to make sushi his first meal in Oahu.

He loves Sushi but I just think it's gross

We strolled around a bit before heading back to the room. The front desk check in areas are all partially outdoors and the hotel was just beautiful.

WAIKIKI BEACH [Day-2 Sunday]

The first thing we did is head to the gym bright and early to get our sweat on. It's so much easier to get up and go to the gym when my time is really my own without 40 hours a week of it sucked up by going to work every day.

I love reading outside. And check out that
beautiful backdrop.

Playing in the water

After that we bought some sandwiches and munchies at the ABC Store which is on every corner there and headed straight for Waikiki beach which was conveniently right in our back yard. This beach is so beautiful and it was calling my name since the moment I laid eyes on it the day before. I could hardly wait! We paid $60 bucks for two chairs and a guy to dig us a hole to put an umbrella in and then lounged around and played in the water there all day.

I only live 30 minutes from the beach
but I can't remember the last time I went

After we finished there we headed to the Lagoon tower pool and lounged some more. This pool had fun water slides and when I got chilly I just jumped in the jacuzzi.

Lagoon Tower Pool-view from our room

I screamed half way down every time I did it

HANGING AT THE POOL [Day 3-Monday]

Back to the gym for an early morning run on the treadmill. Gotta balance out all that food somehow. After that we headed over to our timeshare meeting. Mj is a Hilton Grand Vacations Club owner and when they offered us $200 Hilton bucks to go for an owner update I couldn't turn it down. I have no problem with taking time out of my vacation to sit through these things when we are being offered money that will help finance it. She made us a great offer but there is no way we can buy more points right now so we said no and that was that.

We ate lunch at Hatsuhana again so Mj could eat more sushi then walked next door to the Hale Koa hotel to buy tickets for the activities we wanted to do. They are a military hotel so a lot of the shuttles and tickets are offered at a military discounted price. Up until now we weren't exactly sure what we were going to be doing all week aside from our dinner reservations and our couples massage. Who says you don't need a planner on vacation? The difference is on vacation your planner is only filled with fun stuff you want to do. I wrote out our activities in the daily planner so we wouldn't get confused about when we were doing what.

Our fun filled schedule

Tuesday-Atlantis Tour 3 pm, dinner reservations 7 pm

Wednesday-Diamond Head AM, Couples Massage 3:30 pm

Thursday-Hanauma Bay 7:30 am-1:00 pm, Luau 5 pm

Friday-Explore the Island

Saturday-Go home : (

After sorting that out we headed straight for the Kalia tower pool near the fitness center/spa which we discovered is a lot quieter with very few rug rats running around. This is where Mj jumped into the pool with his iPhone in his pocket. Yep. The very same iPhone that he was getting ready to let me have. I was sooooo close to having an iPhone but it was not to be. Guess it's just me and my trusty crappy razor. That night we watched a DVD we brought from home and ordered pizza in for dinner.

This is the life!

This medium pizza was $23 bucks!
The twisty bread was free with our coupon.

ATLANTIS[Day 4-Tuesday]

We did our 3rd and final gym work out for the week in the morning and then went to lunch. I picked off of Mj's plate because I was still full from dinner the night before but I had a yummy tropical drink. After that we did our Atlantis Submarine Tour. We took a boat out to the submarine and then had to climb down a hole on a latter to get into the submarine.

Mj laughing at me 'cause I fell

I somehow managed to skip the last 5 rungs on the latter and scraped my shin. We went down to about 100 feet. Did you know that the Hawaiian state fish is a Humuhumunukunukuapua? Now that you do can you say it? I can't! We saw schools of fish and sunken airplanes. It was pretty cool.

After that we went to the Hale Koa Hotel bar where the drinks are a bit cheaper and sat there sipping on tropical drinks until dinner. We each had two.

I had either a tropical drink, beer and/or wine every day
except our last day

At 7pm we went over to Bali Steak & Seafood for dinner. It was an overpriced expensive but delicious meal. I got fillet Mignon and Mj got the New York Strip steak. At those prices you'd think they'd give you the the sides but since they didn't we ordered the medley of mashed potatoes, green beans and Jasmine rice. We got a free dessert with a coupon but were so full that we had to take our 7 layer chocolate cake to go. We are only half way through our vacation at this point. Time was moving nice and slow, I was having a blast and there were still four days to look forward to.